


You Could Be Anyone

by AndreaLyn



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 09:39:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1853338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve McGarrett has been making Danny's life hell out of nowhere, which is a shame because Danny doesn't like admitting he has a crush on an asshole. Luckily for the both of them, they have several mutual friends who aren't about to let things rest as they have been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Could Be Anyone

“Heads up, brah,” Kono warns Danny as she passes him in the hall. “You’ve been tagged again.”

Danny fights back the urge to curse with great vim and vigor, pissed beyond the telling that this is the third time this month that it’s happening. He’d put his fist through the lockers, but he’s been warned that any further damage to school property and he’s in for a suspension so intense, his head will spin. It’s why he slows to a stop near his locker and doesn’t do anything but accept the fact that someone’s labelled him ‘fag’ again.

Great, real creative. It’s the third time this month and nothing’s changed.

“Bad luck, Danny,” Toast offers his sympathies. “Hey, you wanna go cheer up, I got some...”

“Toast, I’m on the baseball team and if they catch me smoking the shit you grow, I’m gonna be in for a felony,” Danny complains weakly. Maybe when this happens for the fourth time, he’ll be more inclined to partake in Toast’s home blend. Danny slams his palm against the spraypaint and knows he’s gonna have to miss the first part of practice to get this shit off before he gets in trouble with the administration again.

The worst of it is that, with his luck, it’d be Mrs. McGarrett.

It’s difficult because her son is usually the asshole painting slurs on Danny’s locker. He’s the quarterback of the football team and has it out for Danny. He’s been like that ever since Danny moved to Oahu with his family and Danny swears that one day, he’s gonna lose control of his bat in the parking lot and accidentally smash it through the front window of Steve’s stupid Marquis. He’s an asshole who’s been pulling at Danny’s pigtails since the day he showed up.

Kono is beyond convinced it means Steve likes Danny.

Danny’s pretty sure it just means that Steve is an asshole with power issues. He’s got two ex-girlfriends, Lori and Catherine, who hang out with the baseball team since dumping their football quarterback boyfriend. “He’s not evil, Danny,” Catherine says.

“Yeah? He’s not?” Danny huffs, yanking on his cleats now that he’s late. “Then why the hell is he tagging hate slurs on my locker?”

It’s not like what he’s being accused of is a lie. 

Yeah, Danny’s gay. He likes guys and he’s been pretty open about it since he got to Kukui. After all, he’s already a haole, so if he’s going to be ostracized, he might as well be unpopular for all the things that make him what he is. He just doesn’t understand what the hell McGarrett’s problem is, especially seeing as he doesn’t _seem_ that horrible. They’ve been partnered up in class before and Steve’s okay. He’s not an idiot and he’s even invited Danny over to study at his place.

It’d felt like they were getting close, then all of a sudden, Danny got introduced to a cold shoulder so brutal that it’s like he’s living in Antarctica and then the hate speech had started. 

Lori offers Danny a sympathetic smile. “When we were going out, he said he liked you.”

“Did he?” Danny verifies. “Could he possibly do that with a little less property damage? Because if I have to clean that thing one more time, I’m gonna strip the paint off.”

She and Catherine exchange sympathetic looks, but there’s something else there. Danny’s a smart kid and one day, he thinks he might even try and join the force, become a detective, because he prides himself on what he notices. What he sees there is that between Lori and Catherine, one of them knows something more.

If they don’t want to tell him, that’s their own business. 

Danny’s not getting involved. He just wants to go to school, play baseball, keep his grades up, and try and get out of here. The day he turns eighteen, he’s getting back to the mainland where things make sense again. Danny sighs, stretching his arms over his head and struggles his way to his feet, the ache of practices heavy in his muscles. 

“Danny,” Catherine calls, before he can get to his Camaro. “Are you coming to my place this Friday?”

“Knowing you’ll never talk to me again if I don’t?” Danny says. When she smiles sweetly at him, Danny smirks back. “What time and what should I bring?”

“Eight. And bring some of your mother’s amazing fried sugar twists,” she says. “I’ll get the beer from my older brother.”

“Who’s coming to this thing?”

“Oh, you know,” says Catherine. “The baseball team, some of the girls in our class. People,” she says, smiling and looking just over Danny’s shoulder.

“The football team?” Danny checks.

She shakes her head, holding up her hand as if she’s about to pledge her allegiance to this testimony. “I swear on my Corvette that I did not invite the football team.” She stresses ‘team’ really hard, which should be suspicious, but those guys don’t like to go anywhere without their pack, even the good ones like Chin Ho Kelly. “Danny, it’ll be a good time. I promise.”

He’s not sure he believes her.

Danny’s also not sure he entirely has a choice.

“Fine, I’ll be there,” he allows with a heavy sigh.

**

Danny regrets his decision within five minutes of getting to the Rollins’ home when he wanders inside to put his Mom’s food in the kitchen and catches Steve McGarrett laughing it up with third baseman and the catcher from the baseball team. He doesn’t even need to say a single word, just gives Catherine a pointed glare as he gestures in Steve’s direction with his chin. 

Catherine sips from her beer, eyes wide and innocent. “I didn’t invite the football team.”

“Nah, cuz, just him,” Kono agrees, acting like the immature kid Danny’s grown to know and love except for those moments like right now when he kind of hates her for the fact that she’s messing with his life. “Call it a summit.”

“A what now?”

“A summit,” Lori pipes up and suddenly Danny’s being surrounded by three incredibly intimidating women who are backing him away from the kitchen counter. He could probably put up a fight, but the last thing he needs it to become the guy at school who got beat up at a house party.

Hell, knowing Danny’s luck, it’d probably get videotaped.

Catherine reaches behind him to open a door that leads to a long, narrow pantry, turning Danny around by the broad shoulders and giving him a push inside. “Stay here, don’t start shouting or someone’s going to think we kidnapped someone.”

“You did kidnap someone!” Danny protests heatedly, feeling like he’s fuming so hard that smoke might actually be coming out of his ears. “You invite me here to this nice party with the lure of beer and I even brought you food! I am the optimal house guest and how do you reward me? Huh? How do you reward such hospitality? You push me into a closet!”

Kono smiles at him as she wiggles her fingers in a wave and vanishes. Lori offers sympathetic shrug. Catherine is the one who refuses to break his stare, unflinching as she keeps him in her sights.

“What?” he eventually asks, starting to deflate.

“It’s for your own good, the both of you.”

Then she closes the door. Danny doesn’t miss the distinct sound of a lock, but when Danny flicks the light on, there’s nobody in the pantry with him except for a lot of cereal boxes and so much canned product that he’s starting to think the Rollins family might be hoarding a little and getting ready for some inevitable doomsday.

“Great,” Danny mutters, sliding to his ass and draping his arms over his knees.

He reaches for his cell phone, but that’s gone – probably Kono, seeing as she’s been trying to practice her pickpocketing lately. No dice on calling for a rescue, then. Toast is probably outside in the gazebo high as fuck and Danny’s baseball friends are too busy being charmed by Steve fucking McGarrett. Danny hits his head against the nearest shelf again and again, his frustration running higher than ever and he didn’t even get a beer for his trouble.

Maybe he’s not screwed, though.

Danny has to strain to hear it, but he picks up the faint fall of footsteps and someone shuffling towards the door. “Hey!” Danny shouts. “Hey, in here! Open the door, I got kidnapped for having the sense to think an asshole is an asshole and...” The door is flung open, but it’s not anyone there to rescue him.

In fact, it’s the worst possible scenario.

“Shit,” Danny swears, staring up at Lori’s sweet smile. “You did this?”

“He’s kind of an idiot,” Lori says with a shrug. “We’ll let you out in an hour if things are patched up.” She gives Steve McGarrett a push, sending him stumbling into the room and practically on top of Danny if not for Danny’s quick thinking that keeps them from becoming a pile on the floor.

How did he get roped into this idiocy? Huh? That’s what he wants to know.

“Are you drunk?” Danny asks warily.

“Resigned to my situation,” Steve sighs, lanky limbs arranged haphazardly as he sprawls out on the floor next to Danny, staring at the door with the same hopelessness that Danny’s been feeling. “Apparently I need to start behaving.”

Danny opens his mouth to help lambast his friends, but he stops because yes, Steve McGarrett does need to learn how to behave. He’s just not entirely sure what his role in that is, and why the hell it has to happen behind the locked door of a pantry. Except he kind of does know why he’s here. 

They want them to get along.

This is the worst lesson to have carried from kindergarten. 

Danny reaches up to the lowest shelf and pries a box of granola bars from it, offering the opened pouch to Steve. “Snack? Or does that mess up your precious calorie and protein and fat cell counting thing you got going on,” he says, critically levelling an eye at Steve’s bare arms, which are shown off by the black tank top he’s wearing. “Seriously, have you ever even laid eyes on a twinkie?”

“Looking at one right now,” Steve retorts with a smirk.

“See, that! That right there, that’s why you’re locked in a closet. You’re an asshole who needs to learn some respect,” Danny fumes, yanking the box of granola bars closer to him. He’s decided that even if they’re stuck here for years, he’s going to let Steve starve to death over giving him some food. 

Steve sighs and rubs his hands over his face, tapping his foot frantically against the floor like he can’t let it stay still.

“What the hell is your problem, huh?” Danny mutters. “It’s not like I’m singing for joy that I’m trapped in here with you, either. Except, you know, I’m not the one who goes around tagging slurs on other kids’ lockers like an asshole.” He stares at Steve, waiting for him to reply with something – maybe there’s a reason, maybe Steve has split personalities or some other weird thing is making him do what he does.

Nothing. Steve just stares forward blankly like Danny never said anything.

“This is ridiculous,” Danny mutters, crawling to his knees so he can start pounding on the door with his fists. “Hey! Lemme out of here! I don’t know why I’m getting punished for this!”

“They said if I didn’t do it, they’d know I was one, too.”

It’s so quiet that Danny barely even hears it, but it’s not the sounds of the party outside the door. When he turns around, Steve is still fixated on the ground, not moving in an eerie way that has Danny worried that the boy might secretly know how to turn his body to stone. 

“The football team?”

Steve nods, slowly, and okay, so it’s like pulling really deep teeth, but at least they’re getting somewhere. Danny’s got a pretty good picture in mind and sure, so maybe he’s not ready to abandon the idea of Steve McGarrett, Complete Asshole, but maybe Danny’s starting to see the broader strokes of the picture. So the truth is that he’s still kind of an asshole, but one who’s more preoccupied with his social standing than with doing the right thing.

“Your Mom could probably shut ‘em up with a single look. Why the hell are you so scared?”

No answer.

Great, so they made progress only to end up back here.

Danny groans and slides back down to the ground, knowing that he’s not exactly going to get much out of Steve and get their so-called friends to let them out and for some reason, he’s picking Steve; maybe because his curiosity has been stoked. He reaches out with his foot and kicks Steve’s boot with it to get his attention. It works, enough to pry Steve’s gaze off the floor, but now that Danny’s earned it, he’s not sure what he plans to do with it. 

“Are you planning to go pro? I mean, I can’t see why else you’d let those schmucks keep beating you around.”

“I do it because what’s the alternative?”

“I dunno, not being an asshole?” Danny suggests. 

“If I am who I am,” Steve says darkly. “They won’t stop. It’ll only get worse.”

“So instead of sticking up for yourself and not vandalizing people’s lockers, you wanna keep rolling with the status quo,” Danny interprets. “What could you want that’d make them torture you so badly, huh? That’s what I want to know. You want to quit the football team, huh? You want to ballet dance? Whatever it is you want, I’m pretty sure it’s not worth being their puppet for the rest of high school.”

Steve’s intense gaze has settled on Danny, now.

He says something, but this is so low that he doubts even canines with super hearing would’ve picked it up. “Hey,” Danny says. “How about you try that one again, a little louder this time, huh? What do you want? A pony? Barbie Dream House?”

“You,” Steve snaps. “Okay? I want you.”

Danny almost believes it. For a second, he actually thinks Steve might be serious, but then he remembers all the hurtful things that have been said to him, all the horrible things on his locker, all the sheer cruelty that Steve has levelled at him and Danny quickly realizes that this is just one more poke.

“Right,” he says evenly. “Try that one again. I’m not falling for it so you and the football team can torture me. I’m gay, Steve, and I’m proud of it. Am I happy that it’s made life such a living hell? God, no, but it’s who I am.”

“Danny,” Steve gets out, sounding wrecked. “I’m not trying to screw with you. I mean it,” he insists. He breathes in, a shuddering thing that makes his chest vibrate and makes Danny watch how it tugs the shirt closer to skin. “You’re gorgeous and funny and smart and so, so brave and strong,” he says. “You’re amazing, Danny. I like you and I don’t want them to figure it out and make things worse for you. And if I tell? What happens next,” he scoffs. “You’re right, I’ve been an ass to you, so it’s not like we’re going to date and even if we did, you think that’d be better...”

Danny might have let him keep talking, but he’s too busy crawling across the pantry to grab Steve’s shirt and haul himself into his lap to kiss him to stop the (okay, admittedly) complimentary babbling. He thinks this is the most hilarious way for Steve to confess his feelings and for Danny to reciprocate them.

See, when he’d come out, he kind of never expected to be back in the closet, at least, not like this. He’s not totally sure that it’s a bad thing, given the way Steve kisses his way into something deeper, with the kind of intensity that he devotes on the football field. 

“Steve,” Danny moans into his mouth, coming back to himself a moment later when his sanity returns.

He practically vaults back out of Steve’s lap, eyes wide as he stares at him, wondering when the hell he decided to go whole hog crazy and just go for it, but if he’s honest with himself, he thinks maybe it was around ‘I like you’. The trouble is, it’s all good and fine if Steve likes him in here, in the closet, where no one can see, but the world out there is a whole lot different and Danny isn’t sure Steve’s strong enough to be that guy.

“Look,” Danny exhales. “The way I see it, you’ve got a choice. They’re eventually going to let us out of here and your buddies are out there. Your buddies will be there every day at school and yeah, a lot of them are probably gonna be assholes, but then there’s guys like Chin Ho, who would punch every single one of ‘em if they tried to piss you off. There’s the three lovely ladies who stuck us in here and then there’s me. So you like me? Don’t be a coward, McGarrett. Make a decision and kiss me that way, say those things to me, do it outside.”

Danny has the feeling he’s signing himself over to a good deal of chastity, because he genuinely doesn’t think that Steve is willing to do that, but hey, at least Danny might finish high school with his dignity intact.

He tries to read Steve’s face for a reaction, but there’s nothing but a thousand yard stare that seems to have been perfect a long time ago. 

“Because, I’m gonna tell you,” Danny continues when he really thinks that he can’t exactly push too far after what he just did, “for kisses like that and what might come next? Hell, Steve,” Danny laughs fondly. “I’d be willing to take on whole armies.”

Steve might not say anything, but his cheeks pink up and hey, it’s a small victory, but Danny will take it. 

“Danny?” Catherine calls. “It’s me. If you’re by the door, move away, I’m here to let you out. Are you both still alive?”

“We’ll manage,” Danny replies, not taking his eyes off of Steve. “I mean it,” he says. “You want me? You like me?” he echoes earlier words, hushed so Catherine doesn’t overhear them. “Do something about it outside of here.”

Steve nods, imperceptibly, but Danny takes it as a sign that his message got through.

The door swings open cautiously and Catherine pokes her head in. She checks Danny over, she looks at Steve, then she smiles brightly. “Well, you aren’t exactly in the kind of position I was hoping to find you in, but you’re both alive,” she says. “I’ll take it. Come on, boys, we broke out the drinks and we’re going to play ultimate Frisbee on the beach. We solemnly swear not to lock you in any closets.”

“I wish that I believed that,” Danny huffs, but he’s on his feet and he’s not looking back.

Steve knows what he has to do. 

He’s on his way outside to call out to some of the guys on the baseball team to see if they want to join up when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Danny gets ready to bitch at whoever it is that he’s not in the mood for it when he turns and finds Steve staring at him like Danny’s just discovered the Holy Grail and turns out, it’s him.

Danny is awash with confusion, feeling like it’s going to unsteady him and send him adrift and he’s sure it shows in the furrow of his brows. “Steve?”

“Hey, Chin,” Steve calls over, not taking that steady stare off Danny’s face. “You got your phone on you?”

“Always,” Chin Ho replies distantly, like Danny’s underwater and sound is distorted.

“Good.” Steve sounds tinny too, even though he’s close enough to kiss. Danny’s heart races madly, making him worry that he’s having a premature heart attack from all this stress, but he makes out the next words clear as day. “Can you record this?” 

Whatever Chin Ho replies with is lost to Danny because he stops paying attention the minute Steve runs his fingers through Danny’s gelled hair, getting a grip so he can haul Danny’s body flush against his own and kiss him like the kiss in the cupboard just wasn’t enough for him. He kisses Danny like he’s wanted to do this for months and Danny’s ashamed to say that he wants it right back.

Steve McGarrett might be an asshole, but he’s smart, athletic, and he’s got three amazing women to vouch for him.

Danny’s worried that his frantic whimpers and his greedy thrusts forward are getting captured on someone’s cell phone and that he’s going to get a reputation for himself, but Steve eases away with a few last kisses to his jaw, soothing harsh red marks where he’d bitten without Danny even realizing he’d done it. 

Danny has the good sense to spin around and look for Chin, wondering if it’s too late to stop that video from going out. He moves to get it, but Steve reaches one of those lanky arms out to stop him and turn him back around.

“Relax,” Steve murmurs. “It’s only for the football team to see.”

Danny realizes, then, that this is Steve making his choice.

Deep breath in and Danny tries to face this new world where Steve’s not only taken the ultimatum and rolled with it, but did it so quickly that it makes Danny think it hadn’t even been a question of whether he was going to do it, only a question of when. And that moment is already in the past. 

“So you wanna be with me?” Danny says aloud, the world spinning around him and the horizon going tipsy-turvy more than he’d really like. “I’m not a cheap date, McGarrett.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard.”

“And I don’t put out on the first date.”

“That, I haven’t heard,” is Steve’s wry retort. 

“Not when it matters.” And if Danny gets his way, this is going to matter. 

Because if he can coax as many of those sunny, beautiful smiles from Steve’s face like the one he’s seeing right now, every single step of the way is going to be more than worth it. Danny feels like they’ve got a lot of ground to go over, finding the lines of who they actually are instead of who they pretend to be in the halls of the high school, but yeah, Danny’s willing to find out.

God help him, maybe he’s a masochist.

Or maybe he just really likes Steve McGarrett’s stupid face.

(Both, he thinks months later, when Steve’s hand is slung around his shoulders and he’s glaring defiantly at the high school’s population like he can scare them all away with a single look; it’s definitely both)


End file.
